Restrictive covenants
We have chatted about the many restrictions that property owners are subject to. There are condo rules; there are municipal rules; there are even development rules. These rules can restrict the color of you curtains, what you can keep on your porches, the rooms you can add on, or even the color you can paint your house or whether you can put up Christmas lights.
Many of you have had something to say about those rules.
There is another way to restrict the use of private property. It is called a restrictive covenant. The person buying the property must agree to the conditions written on the deed. Sometime the restriction made the property less valuable. Sometimes it was neutral. Sometimes it was intended to enhance the value (like zoning laws are supposed to.)
Restrictive covenants can include rules like what you see in condominiums and historic areas. You see things like limits on additions, paint colors and such. There are also covenants that say things like, “Alcohol cannot be sold on this property,” “This land cannot be built on for 99 years,” “The elm trees at the entrance cannot be cut down unless they are damaged or diseased,” “This land may only be sold to people who go to such-and-such church.”
Wait a minute! A restrictive covenant can tell a property owner who he can and cannot sell to? Well, yes, until 1948. This was overturned by the Supreme Court on the grounds that we are all equally protected under the law. The case was Shelley v. Kraemer. Restrictive covenants were used as a legal barrier to home ownership for minorities until that time. After this ruling, the discrimination against minority renters continued unabated.
Title VIII of the Civil Rights Act of 1968 made private discrimination illegal when it came to sale or occupancy in housing in America based on race, color, sex, national origin, or religion. This further eroded discriminatory practices of property owners.
Happy Martin Luther King Day.
Have you been on the receiving end of discrimination in housing? Is it still going on in Massachusetts?
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I notice that absent from your list of illegal discrimination factors is age. So, is it legal to discriminate based on age? For instance, can a landlord say, "I haven't had lead abatement done on the apartment, and since you have children, you can't rent the apartment." Or, "sorry, undergrads, I only rent to grad students."?
Thanks.
I presume age is not included...there are plenty of no kids or seniors only developments.
CAUTION:
When talking about discrimination, we will not publish any comments with racial or ethnic stereotypes or slurs!
Restrictive covenants are not enforceable if they violate Federal fair housing laws. That was the result of Shelley vs. Kraemer. Federal laws do not have protected classes in regard to age, family status, sexual orientation, veteran status, source of income; those are protected in our Commonwealth. I will have to ask a lawyer about whether restrictive covenants in Massachusetts which restrict young families are enforceable. I don’t know. Any lawyers out there willing to help me out?
I am sure that undergraduates are not a protected class. As long as a landlord rents to no undergraduates, ever, there is no problem. However, a landlord cannot rent to Italian undergraduates and not Irish ones -- that's discrimination based on ethnic background.
Legally, you're not allowed to discriminate based on family status, so you can't refused to rent to single parents or unmarried couples. I still don't see how senior-only housing is legal.
In Massachusetts, you cannot discriminate on the basis of age or family status or marital status - so you can't decline to rent to families w/children (except for the exemptions for owner-occupied). But you could certainly say that you won't to students, or undergrads vs grad students (regardless of age). Student status is not a protected category, plus the new laws in Boston limiting occupancy to four unrelated people, works against large groups of students.
My sister bought a place in a 'development' that has such rules. All they do is divide the neighbors. People suing each other because they didn't get the neighbors permission to plant a certain tree. An unmarried couple moved in, and they moving to sue them because unrelated people can't live in the same house. (discrimination based on marital status or sexual orientation).
it's insulting to thing that someone else has decided what the "right kind of neighbors" are, and expect total strangers to live happily ever after. sigh.
This blogger might want to review your comment before posting it.
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